Prowlers - 1 (28 page)

Bill Cantwell was a Prowler.

CHAPTER 13

In a handfull of days, slipping away even now, the world as Jack Dwyer had always known it was destroyed. Or, more accurately, the world had been peeled back like the layers of an onion to reveal the truth beneath, and it was enough to make him cry.

Prowlers—monsters from the darkest edge of human imagination—roamed the world. Ghosts lingered on the periphery of every moment, existing in their own parallel realm, the Ghostlands, a kind of spectral curtain superimposed over the world of the living. Jack could see them, even speak to them. His best friend had been violently murdered and yet remained to advise him and exhort him to action.

It had all seemed a nightmare to him until this very moment.

Jack stared in horror at the two creatures, the two Prowlers, tearing and battering at each other in the

middle of Bridget's Irish Rose Pub. His horror stemmed not from their mere presence, which was terrible enough, nor from the devastation as one struck the other hard enough to send it flying into a table and chairs, shattering the furniture. His horror was closer to home.

One of the monsters was his friend.

"Bill?" Jack whispered.

Behind him, he heard Courtney and Molly cry out in surprise and horror. On Courtney's part, he thought there was probably some grief in there as well, for Jack believed his sister loved Bill.

After that, it all happened too fast for him to feel more than the shock that filled him now.

It was simple enough to tell the two beasts apart. Size alone would have done it, for Bill was much larger than his opponent, but there were other differences as well. Bill had gray-and-silver fur, much bushier than the sleek reddish brown of the attacker.

God, what are you thinking? he asked himself. This can't be!

But it was.

Jack held the nine millimeter Beretta steady in his hand, aiming at both of them, but unable to fire.

Monsters, he told himself. They're monsters.

But one of them was Bill.

The one he'd thought of as the celebrity lunged across the middle of the restaurant with extraordinary speed, claws slashing air and then slashing Bill. Blood spattered the floor. The celebrity was faster than Bill,

but suddenly that did not matter. His attack had brought him in too close. Bill reached out, grabbed him by the throat and the front of the shirt and jacket that still hung on his monstrous body, then drove the Prowler's head through a thick pane of frosted glass that separated two booths. The Prowler tumbled onto the table—a table still covered with the half-eaten meals of patrons who had fled when chaos erupted.

He tried to turn, to rise, snapped his jaws at Bill, trying to tear at his opponent with a mouthful of razor teeth. He missed.

With one powerful swipe of an enormous clawed hand, Bill batted the other Prowler ofF the table and on to the floor. His claws had raked the celebrity's face, and blood was pouring from the wounds, matting the beast's fur. Cantwell followed the other down to the floor, a roar of fury rising up from his chest. Bill snapped at his broken enemy, then snarled, baring his fangs as slaver dripped from them.

Arching its back, the other Prowler tilted back its head and exposed its furry throat. Bill ducked down and snapped his jaws closed on the other's neck.

"Oh, Bill, no!" Courtney cried.

Leaning on her cane, she hobbled up beside Jack. Molly was right behind her. The three of them stared across the restaurant at the awful scene being played out on the floor.

Jack held the Beretta steady, but now that the celebrity no longer seemed a threat, it was aimed at Bill. The man who had been a friend to him lifted his head

and glared with yellow, feral eyes across at Jack and the others—the people who had composed his little family. Jack was stunned to see that the celebrity still lived, that Bill had not torn his throat out, as Jack had expected.

"Bill?" Jack rasped, shaking his head, his aim faltering.

The Prowler spoke. "He's done. He's given up. Ask him whatever you want to know. He'll tell

you."

Jack, Molly, and Courtney only stared, paralyzed by the sound of Bill's voice—ragged and deeper than usual—coming from the throat of a beast.

"Get back," Jack snapped. He motioned with the gun, but kept it leveled at Bill. His mind whirled, trying to make sense of the situation, trying to decide what to do.

Jack glanced around in hope that Artie or one of the other phantoms might appear and offer some sort of guidance. There was no advice to be had. No ghosts offered to mediate in the war that was currently raging between his head and his heart. For Jack's head was telling him to shoot, to kill both of the monsters. But his heart...

In the distance, sirens blared. Only minutes had passed since it all began. Now the police were on their way. Bill's huge, shaggy head was tipped up toward the windows, his pointed ears pricking as the sirens reached them. His gaze swept across all three of them, a deep sadness in his monstrous eyes. Then he stared right at Jack.

"Shoot me, if that's what you have to do," Bill said

suddenly. He stood up to his full height, gave Jack a clean target.

Jack nodded slowly, steadied his aim.

Courtney cursed under her breath and said Jack's name. Her tone was enough to reveal her feelings. She was afraid, but she did not want him to kill their friend. It was the worst decision he had ever had to make, but if he let Bill live, how could they ever trust him?

"He's a monster," Jack said, his voice breaking. "He's one of them. They killed Artie, and who knows how many others."

Bill bristled. "I'm a Prowler, yeah, but I'm not one of them. Do what you have to do, but I'm not one of them."

"You can't kill him, Jack."

Jack flinched. He cast Molly a quick sidelong glance.

"All this time Bill's been a part of your life and you never knew this. He never hurt you guys or anyone else, as far as you know," Molly said gently, casting a wary glance at Bill. "Maybe he is a monster, and maybe he'll kill us all. Maybe. Or maybe he's just Bill. We don't understand Prowlers, don't understand what they are or if all of them are like the ones we've seen. If you let him live, we could pay for it with our lives. But if you kill him, it will haunt you forever. You'll always wonder if you did the right thing."

Jack stared at her. His entire body seemed clenched tight like a fist and he shook his head, completely at a loss as his mind and heart continued to war within him.

The sirens were louder.

"They're getting closer, Jack," Bill growled. He sniffed at the air with his long snout, ears twitching. His huge claws hung down at his sides. On the floor in front of him, the defeated Prowler had not moved, but his feral yellow eyes watched with great interest and cunning as the scene unfolded.

Closer. In his head he heard Artie's voice telling him that he had to take the Prowlers down, make them pay. But the monster on the floor, the one Bill had defeated, had information they needed.

The pistol wavered in Jack's hand. He stared at Bill. A dreadful certainty filled him. "You could take this gun away from me any time, couldn't you?"

"Jack—" Bill began.

"Couldn't you?" Jack demanded. "I've seen how fast you move. Even if you took a bullet, you could kill us all."

"What do you think?" Bill asked.

Still reeling, not at all content with his decision but feeling it was his only option, Jack nodded and turned the gun on the Prowler who lay on the floor at Bill's feet. The beast flinched.

"I can tell you where the lair is," it whined.

"I know where the lair is," Jack countered.

The celebrity's eyes widened.

"How long have you known?" Bill asked.

"Since this morning," Molly explained. "Jack's been keeping a lot of little secrets to himself."

Courtney took a step toward Bill, using her cane to

steady herself. She gazed at him with love and sadness, but without fear. "Jack's not the only one," she said.

Bill glanced away, unwilling to meet Courtney's gaze.

With that very human reaction, Jack truly saw for the first time the resemblance between this

monster and the human facade he had always known. A sharp jolt went through him that was neither love nor anguish but perhaps a little of both.

After a moment's hesitation, Courtney moved closer to Bill. Close enough that had he been of a mind to kill her, he had only to strike out at her. A single blow would likely have done it.

"I... I don't know what it takes for you to change back," Courtney said softly. "But you'd better do it before the cops get here."

The gratitude in the beast's eyes was endless. With a sound like the crinkling of cellophane, Bill changed. The beast seemed to pull in on itself; bones popped, the jaw receded, and fur withdrew beneath a new sheath of human skin.

Then he was just Bill again. At least on the surface. In all of their minds, he would never again be just Bill.

Courtney went to him and Bill held her in a tight embrace. Jack wanted to shout to her to get away from him, his fear for his sister deeply embedded in him. But whatever Bill was, whatever monster hid behind his face, he loved Courtney. Jack understood that Bill would never harm her. Or any of them.

He had to trust in that. Bill was family. Jack wasn't going to let his family be shattered again.

"Jack, the cops," Molly prompted him.

With a nod, he stepped closer to the Prowler on the floor, Beretta steady in his grip, aimed at the beast's face.

"Your name?"

"Eric Carver."

Carver. So it had a name.

Molly stepped in front of Jack, gave him a hard look. "We don't have time for this. We have seconds, Jack."

She turned to Bill. "What do we need to know from him that you can't tell us?"

Bill glared at Carver. "How many are there? Who's the leader?"

"Fifty. Maybe slightly fewer now," Carver said quickly, as cooperatively as possible. "The Alpha's Owen Tanzer."

"Tanzer," Bill muttered. "Damn."

Tires squealed out on the street. Police cars pulled in, blue and red lights flashing through the windows of the pub. The shadows of patrons who had fled but stayed out on the street to see what unfolded played against the glass like ghosts.

Molly swore. "What will they do with this Carver creature?" she asked, studying Jack closely.

"I don't know," he admitted. "Probably they'll kill him. They're trying to cover this up."

"Probably isn't good enough," Molly said bitterly.

With one fluid motion, she tore the Beretta from

Jack's grasp, steadied it with both hands, and shot the Prowler twice in the chest.

The monster bled out on the floor as the police kicked through the front door, their own weapons drawn.

While the police cordoned off the area, the crime scene team descended on the pub. They took photographs, collected evidence, and dumped corpses in body bags. EMTs treated Courtney's wounds, which weren't as bad as they looked. Bill's wounds, too, had seemed far more significant when they were first inflicted.

Throughout the process, the police never said a word to them beyond the most bland comments. They were instructed to sit together at a table in the far corner of the restaurant, and they remained there in silence as the investigation commenced—if one could call it an investigation. Jack thought of it more as a continuation of the cover-up. The body bags were zipped up and the corpses of the dead Prowlers were carted off without even an odd look. The cops didn't wait for the medical examiner, and they sure as hell didn't call the animal control unit.

Twenty minutes after the police had descended upon Bridget's—during which police officers had taken statements from most of the patrons outside and then ushered them away—Jason Castillo walked in the front door. The detective glanced once around the pub, spotted Jack and the others in the back, and strode carefully through the restaurant toward them.

"This should be interesting," Bill mumbled.

His voice gave Jack a bit of a shudder. It was a reminder of the truth they had just learned about Bill, which was going to take a long time to get used to. But Jack supposed that visits from his best friend's ghost and the sight of Prowlers tearing apart security guards in Fenway Park had prepared him for it—if anything could.

"Mr. Dwyer. Looks like you've had quite a night," the homicide detective said casually. He pulled out a chair, turned it around, and straddled it, regarding the four of them.

"You think there's something funny about this?" Molly demanded.

Jack heard the bite in her voice, each word clipped off with a clack of teeth. In the back of his head he could still hear the echo of the Beretta firing, still see Molly draw down on Carver and pump two rounds into his chest. Molly Hatcher. Molly did that. He kept telling himself that but it was hard to accept. Not that he blamed her. After what they'd done to Artie and what they'd tried to do to her and Jack, he understood completely why she wouldn't take a chance that the cops would keep him alive, try to talk to him, give him a chance to escape without paying for all he'd done.